octopode supremacy

When I was buying Path of Exile 2, there was a slew of negative recent reviews on Steam, due to the devs’ mishandling of the current Path of the Vaal league. I was curious, so I looked it up. The main mechanic in Path of the Vaal is that you build a temple which you can run repeatedly for loot. Apparently, players found a temple build that was much more optimal than the devs intended. The devs’ solution was to prevent that kind of temple from being constructed. But the top players who had already finished their temples were unaffected and could continue farming mad loot. Predictably, this satisfied no one. Sucks to spend many hours working on one’s temple, only to have it rendered moot before completion while one’s competitors are raking in cash! The forums are basically an entire salt mine, plus one guy who wrote a detailed analysis on the net impact of the change on the economy. (“The divine orb has gained value against exalts again, it is back to about 315 ex now…”) I appreciate that guy.

Anyway, the change doesn’t affect us, because we’re in Standard instead of Path of the Vaal. Neither of us is into competitive league gameplay. We’re just enjoying the campaign. Last night we beat Act 2 (featuring Jamanra, the Abomination). Fun boss fight. It was a huge ramp-up in difficulty, in a good way. HGR carried the fight with his dps, but he’s made of glass so there were a lot of runs where he got one-shot early on and I walled it.

I’m loving the gameplay (it’s PoE, of course it’s good) but the plot feels really scattershot to me. I only vaguely understand what’s going on:

• The Countess is keeping an Octillery in a cage. This is really bad news for some reason.
• She was working with the Count, who was forcing the local villagers to dig a basement under his mansion (why??) and (I think) was also feeding villagers to the Octillery (I’m not clear on this part). Anyway, we confronted the Count in the basement of his manor. He turned into a wolf for some reason and fought us. Then he was like “hey, Countess, some help?” and the Countess was like “NOPE BYEEEE” and left with the Octillery.
• The Countess got a new boyfriend, Jamanra. (“Two-timing bitch,” said HGR.) I’m not sure what Jamanra’s deal is; apparently there’s a feud between the Maraketh and the Faridun(?) (I don’t know what either of these factions are) and Jamanra wants to “make the Maraketh pay” for unspecified reasons. Anyway, we spent the entirety of Act 2 chasing after Jamanra. He blocked our path with a sandstorm, and we had to do like five random sidequests to construct a horn that, when blown, dispelled the sandstorm (why?). Then we fought and beat Jamanra. Then the Countess left again with the Octillery.
• The Hooded One was like “You really gotta do something about that Octillery. Also, I’m a dark angel.” and he sprouted wings. END OF ACT 2.

Why are we doing all this? Pretty sure there is no plot justification. We are just a duo of escaped criminals who compulsively click on quest icons.